Shattered (LOST #3)(18)

Back then, a woman calling herself Eve Gray had come into the LOST offices in Atlanta. Eve had possessed no memory of her life, and she’d wanted the LOST group to help her figure out just who she was. They’d found out the truth for Eve, and along the way, Gabe had fallen for the blonde.

But Jax Fontaine wasn’t suffering from any memory loss, she’d stake her life on that. Was he just trying to play some game with them?

“I was seven when I was taken,” he said softly.

Goose bumps rose on her arms. Staring into his eyes, she saw how very serious he was. This is no game.

“I don’t remember where I was before then.” His voice was flat, so odd, without any emotion. “I know that the man who took me was a sadistic freak. He’d hit me, he’d threaten me, and . . .” Now his gaze seemed to see into the past. “For days, he’d lock me in a closet. He did that until I stopped begging to go home.”

Helpless now, she reached out to him. “Jax . . .” Her fingers curled around his arms. No emotion was in his voice or his face, but she could feel his pain, all but hanging in the air between them.

“After a while, I learned not to ask for home.” He glanced down at her hand, as it curled around his arm. “But I’m asking now. I’ll pay whatever price LOST demands, but I want to know where I came from. I want to know who I was . . .” His lips twisted. “ . . . before I became Jax Fontaine.”

Jax . . . a man who’d been arrested over a dozen times before his eighteenth birthday.

A man rumored to be the boss of the New Orleans underworld.

A man who’d . . . been a victim?

“So tell me the price,” Jax murmured, “and I’ll pay it.”

Her fingers tightened around his arm.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Gabe said, his words soft but laced with sympathy. “We don’t take a case, not until we’ve researched it more. We have to make sure—”

“—that I’m not bullshitting you?” he asked bluntly.

“Yes.” Gabe’s equally blunt reply.

“I’m not.” Jax’s gaze dipped to Sarah’s hand. “The man who became my—my father . . .” His lips twisted with disgust as he said the word. “He . . . took me. That I know with certainty. I was someone else before, and I need to find out who the hell that kid was.” His breath heaved out. “He didn’t work alone. There was a woman with him. Her name was Charlene. Charlene Fontaine.” His lips curved the faintest bit. “She became my mother. She . . . loved me.” He pulled away from Sarah and looked back out the window. “She used to tell me that my old mother was gone. But that she’d be better. And . . . in her way, she did take care of me.” After a moment, he said, “When I was fifteen, she killed herself.”

Sarah’s hand fell back to her side.

“I tried to save her, but I couldn’t. I figured my past died with her.” His fingers pressed to the glass. “But then I learned all about the LOST group, thanks to Emma. And I realized I might just find out where I’d come from, after all.”

She wanted to help him. No, more than that. Sarah needed to help him. She’d thought that Jax was strong, dangerous—he was. But there was so much happening beneath the surface with him.

Sarah glanced back over her shoulder. Dean had tensed at the mention of Emma’s name. No big surprise there, considering that the guy was in love with Emma Castille. But, once upon a time, Emma had been involved with Jax. Intimately involved. Sarah knew Dean didn’t exactly like having Jax anyplace near Emma but . . .

Don’t worry, Dean. Jax has moved on. Sarah just wasn’t going to get into the specifics of that whole moving-on bit right then.

Gabe’s intent stare was on Jax. It was Gabe who would make the final call about the case. He’d be the one to tell them if they could go ahead or if—

Gabe nodded, a small inclination of his head. “We’ll see what we can find for you.”

Instead of relaxing, Jax’s powerful shoulders tensed even more.

“But you should be warned,” Gabe continued, “you might not like what we discover.”

Jax just laughed as he turned to face them all once more. “Obviously, you don’t know what my life has been like. Nothing can be much worse than what I’ve lived through already.”

Sarah believed him.

Seven years old.

A chair leg scraped. Sarah glanced back and saw that Victoria had risen to her feet. “We’ll need your DNA,” Victoria said. “We should do some blood work. We’ll check NamUs and see if any reports match your case.”

NamUs—the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Yes, they could check the database and see if there was a report of a seven-year-old boy vanishing around a timeline that fit Jax’s story. They could see—

“Don’t bother with NamUs,” Jax said, his voice close to a growl. “Did you think I hadn’t already tried them? Hell, I’ve hired three PIs in the last two years. No one ever turns up anything.” His gaze bored into Sarah’s. “I want you to be different.”

“We don’t give up easily,” she whispered.

“Good. Neither do I.” There was a deeper, harder note in his last words.

She shivered.